ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

LESSON 5
PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Population Dynamics is the general study of population changes.

The population is referring to the group of individuals of the same species living in
the same locality or interbreeding and sharing genetic information.

Demography refers to the statistical study of human populations and those who
study human populations, including demographers.

Five Key Properties of Population

1. abundance
2. birth rates
3. death rates
4. growth rates
5. age structure
 HUMAN POPULATION
• The world population now stands at around 7.8 billion
inhabitants, having reached 7 billion milestones in 2011.
Demographers expect the 8 billion breakthroughs in 2023, It is
common to say that human populations, like that of the
United States, grow at an exponential rate, which means that
the annual growth rate is a constant percentage of the
population

• Usually, in discussions of population dynamics, birth, death,

and growth rates are expressed as percentages (the number
per 100 individuals). The human population is so huge that
percentages are too crude a measure, so it is common to
state these rates in terms of the number per 1,000, referring
to the crude rate. Thus, we have the crude birth rate, crude
death rate, and crude growth rate. More specifically, here is a
list of terms that are used frequently in discussions of human
population change and will be useful to us in this book from
time to time.
POPULATION PROJECTION

• Logistic Growth Curve

If the human population had augmented at this rate

since the beginning of recorded history, it would now
exceed all the known matter in the universe. If a
population cannot increase forever, what changes in
the population can we expect over time? One of the
first suggestions made about population growth is
that it would follow a smooth S-shaped curve known
as the logistic curve. A logistic population would
increase exponentially only temporarily. After that,
the rate of growth would gradually decline (i.e., the
population would increase more slowly) until an
upper limit, called the logistic carrying capacity, was
reached.
Age Structure

• As we noted earlier, the two standard methods for forecasting human

population growth—the exponential and the logistic—ignore all characteristics
of the environment and, in that way, are seriously incomplete. A more
comprehensive approach would take into account the effects of the supply of
food, water, and shelter; the prevalence of diseases; and other factors that can
affect birth and death rates. But with long-lived organisms like ourselves, these
environmental factors have different effects on different age groups. So the next
step is to find a way to express how a population is divided among ages. It is
known as the population age structure, which is the proportion of the
population of each age group. The population's age structure affects current
and future birth rates, death rates, and growth rates impacting the environment
and impacting current and future social and economic conditions.
• The pyramid age structure occurs in a population with many young people and
a high death rate at each age—and therefore, it is a high birth rate, a rapidly
growing population, and a relatively short average lifetime population.
 DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION

is a three-stage pattern of change in birth rates and death rates

during the industrial and economic development of Western
nations. It leads to a decline in population growth. A decrease in
the death rate is the first stage of the demographic transition. In a
nonindustrial country, birth and death rates are high, and the
growth rate is low. With industrialization, health and sanitation
improvements and the death rate drop rapidly. The birth rate
remains high, however, and the population enters Stage II, a
period with a high growth rate.

Although the demographic transition is traditionally defined as

consisting of three stages, advances in treating chronic health
problems such as heart disease can lead to a stage III country to a
second decline in the death rate. It could bring about a second
transitional phase of population growth (Stage IV), in which the
birth rate would remain the same while the death rate fell. A
second stable phase of low or zero growth (Stage V) would be
achieved only when the birth rate declined even further to match
the decline in the death rate. The spurting of growth is dangerous
in an industrialized nation, even in the standard demographic
transition.
LONGEVITY

The maximum lifetime is the genetically determined

maximum possible age to which an individual of a species can
live. Life expectancy is the average number of years an
individual can expect to live given the individual’s present
age.
HUMAN CARRYING CAPACITY OF
EARTH

What is the human carrying capacity of Earth—that is, how many people can live
on Earth at the same time? The results may depends on what quality of life people
desire and are willing to accept. Limiting factors such as short-term, intermediate-
term, and long- term can affect the population growth every year.
1. Short-term - refers to the disruption of food distribution in a country,
commonly caused by drought or a shortage of energy for transporting food.
2. Intermediate-Term - This term includes the dispersal of certain biochemical
pollutants and disruption in the nonrenewable resources (metals and
minerals), transportation of machinery, and the decrease in the supply of
firewood for heating ang cooking.
3. Long Term - Factors include soil erosion, a decline in groundwater supplies,
and climate change. A reduction in resources available per person suggests
that we may already have exceeded Earth’s long-term human carrying
capacity.